The Misadventures of Project Heracles
by Marvelite5Ever
Summary: Chapter fic following the events of "The Adventures of Bucky Bear" and "The Trials of Captain Ameribear" in which Steve and Bucky go on a mission to cut of all Hydra's heads and burn the stumps. They encounter some problems along the way... THIS STORY HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED.
1. Two Left Feet

_**BEFORE YOU START READING: THIS STORY HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED. **__**YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.  
**_

**This story follows the events of my one-shots _The Adventures of Bucky Bear _and _The Trials of Captain Ameribear, _which you don't necessarily _have _to read to enjoy this story, although you might want to just so you understand where everybody is at this point. And I originally said I was not going to continue that storyline, but well, I couldn't help myself, frankly :3**

**This story will be a combination of some slightly ridiculous situations but hopefully still in-character characters, and knowing myself there will be plenty angst and hurt/comfort and such. **

**This is really just for fun, because there are just some situations that I wanted to see Steve and Bucky try to deal with ;3 **

* * *

**Chapter 1: Two Left Feet  
**

It was date night—Bucky and Steve were going dancing. And they were running late.

"Steve!" Bucky called, banging on the bathroom door with his right hand. "Come out already! We've got to go!"

"I'm working on it!" came the muffled reply from inside.

"What's taking you so long?" Bucky demanded in irritation. "It's not like you've got long hair to deal with or anything, it shouldn't take that long for your hair to dry."

"Hey, I haven't gotten all dressed up like this since the 1940s!" Steve protested from inside, talking loudly over the sound of the hairdryer.

"Steve," Bucky said warningly, standing back to glare at the door and cross his arms. "If you don't get out of there this second, I am knocking with my left hand. And you _know _how I have trouble moderating the strength of the metal appendage sometimes."

"Okay okay!" came Steve's voice, flustered, as the sound of the hairdryer turned off. "Let me run a comb through my hair though..."

"Steve, I'm knocking," Bucky warned, raising his left hand towards the weak plywood door, which suddenly swung inwards, so that Bucky's metal fist almost connected with Steve's face instead.

Bucky stopped his hand just in time, grinning triumphantly.

"How do I look?" Steve asked self-consciously as he stepped out, somehow managing to look up from under his combed and slightly damp blond hair at his best friend, despite being taller.

Bucky looked him over; Steve was wearing gray dress pants with a matching gray suit over a white dress shirt, with a crooked light-blue tie.

Eyebrows raising in mild surprise at Steve's groomed appearance, Bucky gave a smirk, saying, "Wow, you must really think Sharon's cute."

Steve flushed.

"However, there is a problem," Bucky continued seriously.

"Oh?" Steve asked, slightly nervous. "And what's that?"

"Your tie is crooked," Bucky answered, coming right up to Steve and straightening it, then clapping Steve on his muscular shoulders and grinning. "All fixed."

Chuckling, Steve said, "What would I ever do without you, Buck?"

"Go on dates with your tie crooked?" Bucky guessed, as he grabbed Steve's arm and began dragging him out of the apartment. "Actually, scratch that—you wouldn't be going on any dates at _all."_

As they came out into the well-lit living room, Steve saw that Bucky was wearing a black suit and dress pants, plain black tie, white gloves, and had his long dark hair slicked back; Steve snorted.

"Really with the Loki hair, Buck?" he asked, as the two of them practically ran down the stairs.

"Loki hair?" Bucky asked in confusion, and Steve suddenly remembered that Bucky hadn't been there for what the alien invasion of New York—he'd been frozen in a Hydra cryo-tube.

"Nevermind," Steve muttered.

When they got outside, Bucky made a dash for the driver's seat of Steve's silver station wagon, but Steve put on a burst of speed and beat him to the door.

"Nuh uh," he said, pointing Bucky to the other side. "You sit shotgun. After what happened last time I let you drive—"

"Come on," Bucky said, lips pouting slightly. "I didn't _mean _to nearly rip the steering wheel off..."

His voice dried up at Steve's pointed look, and, heaving a sigh, Bucky vaulted himself over the front of the car to the other side and swung himself into the shotgun seat.

"Don't slam the door," Steve warned from the driver's side, and Bucky, who had been about to slam the door, caught it at the last moment and closed it gently, and Steve guided the vehicle out onto the streets of Washington DC.

* * *

Bucky started out the drive fairly relaxed, as they drove through the streets listening to the 'oldies radio.' But as the drive went on, his body became more tense, and he began scanning the city out the car windows, glancing behind the car, craning his head up as if trying to see the tops of the buildings, or snapping his head around suddenly to stare at the other side of the street.

"Is something the matter, Buck?" Steve asked, casting a concerned glance over at his friend.

"Nah, nothing," Bucky said, attempting a casual drawl, but his shifty eyes said something completely different.

"We don't have to go if you're uncomfortable—" Steve started to offer, but Bucky quickly cut him off.

"No," Bucky shook his head, "We can't let the girls down. At least," he glanced at the clock, which showed that they were already five minutes late. "Not anymore than we are already."

"Well, just let me know if dinner didn't agree with you or something," Steve said as he pulled up to the dance studio they were taking the ballroom dancing class at, letting Bucky know that he could make up an excuse to leave if he started freaking out.

Bucky shrugged him off with a, "Guess it's a good thing I haven't eaten dinner yet, then," and opened the car door to step out.

"Don't slam the car door!" Steve called as he stepped out as well, and once again Bucky caught himself at the last moment.

"We really need to work on your door slamming problem," Steve told him, as side by side they entered the building, Steve grabbing the door and holding it open, gesturing Bucky through with a quipped, "Ladies first."

"Beauty before age," Bucky answered with a smirk as he strode through the door and let Steve fall in behind him, though he kept glancing back over his shoulder as if to make sure Steve was still there.

"Doesn't that saying go the other way around?" Steve asked, furrowing his brow as he tried to remember.

"Nope," Bucky answered assuredly.

They came into a fairly large room a bar running along one side, and mirrors covering the three other walls.

"Is this a ballet studio?" Steve asked, looking around at the room and the group of men in suits and ladies in long dresses.

"A dance studio," Bucky corrected, spotting their dates and waving the girls over with a grin. "And that includes ballroom."

Coming over to them, Sharon stood with her arms crossed, narrowing her eyes at Steve. She was wearing here blond hair down, wavy around her shoulders, and was wearing a red dress the hugged closer to her torso and then flowed down to just below her knees in the kind of skirt that fans out and ripples when spun.

"You're late," she accused.

Steve swallowed, blinking and glancing down.

Bucky came to the rescue. "Sorry ladies," he said with an easy, charming grin, as he held out his right elbow for Sharon's friend—who just happened to be a different woman from their last date—and continued, "But we wanted to make sure we looked our best for you."

The woman placed a gloved hand in the crook of his elbow, giving a small smile. She was wearing a long black gown with a slit that exposed some of her right leg, and her brown hair was pulled up in a bun at the top of her head.

"Bucky Barnes, I believe?" she asked, as he began leading her towards the circle of couples lining up. "Just want to make sure I signed the right man in on the sheet," she said, nodding to the table at one side of the room.

"Indeed," Bucky smiled his winning smile. "And you are...?"

"Maria Hill," the woman answered.

Both couples integrated themselves on the dance floor, beginning to followed the instructions of the dance teachers as they demonstrated the waltz.

_One two three, one two three, one two three... _Bucky kept to the beat and slid his feet across the floor, even as his eyes were constantly flitting to the different mirrors, analyzing.

"Looking for the best way to escape?" Maria asked, lips tilting, as she watched his face.

Bucky laughed. "Nah, you're a great dancer," he smiled at her, though his eyes were still on the mirrors. "Something tells me you've danced before."

"I could say the same about you," she answered, left hand on his right bicep and right hand held high in his left, his right hand against her shoulder blade. "So I'm assuming you aren't watching the mirrors to make sure you're doing everything right."

"Okay, you got me," Bucky said, still smiling, as he led her into a girl-under. "I'm trying to see how Steve's doing, make sure he isn't stepping on Sharon's feet."

Maria glanced at the mentioned couple, noticing that Steve actually was dangerously close to stepping on Sharon's feet, and he kept missing the beat.

"He needs to slide his feet along the floor," Maria agreed.

"Yeah, who knew Captain America had two left feet," Bucky said, shaking his head. "I think somebody ought to tell him."

And with that, Bucky waltzed Maria over to Steve and Sharon, falling into dance-step beside them.

"Hey Steve," Bucky said, continuing to dance as his friend looked over at him, and, distracted, stepped on Sharon's foot.

"Sorry!" Steve apologized to her, eyes wide.

Sharon just smiled thinly at him. "It's fine," she said, "There's a learning curve for everyone."

"It would help if you slid your feet on the floor," Bucky offered, nodding for Steve to watch what he was doing. "You keep trying to step like you're walking, but you're not. You're dancing."

"Right," Steve said, trying to mimic Bucky's moves.

Some of the other dancers were watching them too, and seemed to be trying to figure out what beat Steve was dancing to, because it was still erratic and not to the beat of the music.

And Bucky found himself very grateful for it.

"You're very tense," Maria remarked, and Bucky's gaze snapped to her face.

He tried for a charming laughe, but it sounded tight and forced even in his own ears. "It's just been a while since I've danced, I guess I'm a little out of practice."

And with that pronouncement, his legs suddenly tangled up and he tripped, dragging Maria to the side and crashing into Steve at the same time just as several bullets whizzed by where'd they'd just been standing.

Chaos broke out.

The Hydra agents that been concealed among the dancers had suddenly pulled guns from their jackets and were firing at the supersoldiers, civilians were crying out in alarm and running for the door, but then Sharon and Maria had pulled guns from under their skirts and were shooting back, and Steve and Bucky were in action like a deadly ballet of graceful and precise arms and legs that dropped Hydra agents to the ground like flies.

"Dammit, I think I tore my jacket," Bucky muttered, as the last of the enemies fell and the four of them stood there on a now-blood dance floor. "And I ruined my gloves. I guess that's what I get for wearing white."

The satin white fabric was now stained incarnadine.

Pulling them off, Bucky reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out his phone, plugging in a number and holding it to his ear.

"We should go before the police get here," Sharon remarked, glancing around at the dead bodies.

"Yeah, once we deal with the couple snipers on the roof across the street," Bucky said, holding out his right hand for a gun even while he still held the phone to his hear with his left.

"Gimme," he ordered, and after a moment Maria handed him one.

"Bucky..." Steve said, but Bucky waved him to silence.

"Stay here and hold that," he ordered as he handed Steve the phone, and then ran outside, crashing through the doors.

"BUCKY!" Steve shouted, dashing after his friend, as the sound of gunshots rang through the air.

There was a clanging of metal as Bucky raised his left arm up, blocking the bullets with his forearm while he raised his right and, with two well-placed bullets, shot the snipers straight through their heads.

"Bucky!"

The phone in Steve's hand stopped ringing.

"Hello?" came a voice, and as the ladies came outside, Bucky grabbed the phone from Steve's hands.

"Hello Fury," Bucky greeted, winking at Maria when she raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm calling you to take you up on that offer, on one condition."

A pause as the soldier listened, before Bucky stated his condition.

"Steve comes with me."

Another pause, and then, "Roger that." and Bucky hung up.

"Buck—" Steve started, before Bucky turned to him and clapped him on the shoulder, offering him a dark smirk.

"Thank you, Steve," he said.

Steve blinked. "For what?"

"For having two left feet. Made it a lot harder for those agents in there to try to get a hit on you."

Furrowing his brow, Steve asked, "Is that an insult or a compliment? And what went on between you and Fury?"

"We're meeting him at a safehouse for mission details," Bucky said, starting towards the car, opening the door and slipping into the driving seat. "We're going to take Hydra down."

He glanced at Steve and the girls, raising his eyebrows. "Are you coming?"

After a moment of hesitation, Steve sat shotgun, and Maria and Sharon climbed into the back, Bucky pulling away sharply from the curb as sirens became audible in the distance.

Steve's head was flung back against the headrest.

"Bucky," he said.

"That is my name," Bucky agreed, hitting the gas to make a yellow light before it turned red, and turning the car sharply to the left, throwing the passengers roughly to the right.

Eyes flicking to the review mirror, Bucky muttered to himself, "Gotta shake 'em off our tales..."

Steve clenched his jaw, knuckles white as he gripped the handle in the inside of the door. "Please, _please _don't crash and kill anybody."

"Remember that time you made us slide down a zipline and land on that train?" Bucky asked.

Steve suddenly felt not only nervous about Bucky's driving, but what felt like carsickness, something knotting in his gut and making him nauseous.

"Yeah," he hazarded, voice thick.

"Well this is payback," Bucky grinned darkly, skidding the tires as he turned right, eliciting a honk from the care he cut off as he sped down the road. "Except that _you're_ not allowed to die in the process."

* * *

**This chapter came from me wanting to see how a ballroom dancing class would turn out with Steve... but of course Hydra has to come in and ruin the party x.x**

**So Bucky got most of the attention and saved Steve this chapter, but don't you worry - Steve will get his fair share of attention and saving Bucky as well ;) And Bucky was pretty stable in this chapter, but he won't always be that way... there will also be some volatile and breaking-down Bucky as well as badass Bucky ;3**


	2. The Trouble with Ringtones

**Chapter 2: The Trouble with Ringtones  
**

The Hydra agents disguised as cops were catching up to them, their police car lights coruscating and sirens blaring.

"Hold on," Bucky warned, as he gunned the gas and ran a red light, narrowly missing hitting the cars driving in the perpendicular direction as he swung the steering wheel around to jerk the car to the right to fall into that line of traffic.

Suddenly a song started playing from Bucky's pocket.

"_But I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down, I'm only human, and I crash and I break down."_

"AGH!" Bucky cried, jerking the car to the left to speed down a side street while he reached into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out his phone. "Steve did you hack my ringtone again?!"

"_Your words in my head, knives in my heart, you build me up and then I fall apart."_

"Why would I do that?" Steve asked, as Bucky glanced down at the phone to try to click the 'answer' button. "But you do know it's illegal to talk on the cellphone while you're driving, right?"

"_'Cause I'm only human, yeah."_

"I have to!" Bucky protested, glancing up at the street, then back down at the phone. "I can't stand this song!"

"Look where you're going!" Sharon shouted from her seat behind Bucky, and the soldier glanced up just in time to jerk the steering wheel to avoid hitting a pedestrian as he cut across the corner of the sidewalk.

"_I can turn it on. Be a good machine."_

"Dammit!" Bucky cried, ramming into a fire hydrant instead as his hands flew up to cover his ears.

Water sprayed up in a geyser behind them as the care wove out of control, Bucky throwing the phone into the back seat and shouting, "Somebody answer the fucking phone already!"

"_I can do it, I can do it, I'll get through it. But I'm only human..."_

"Somebody answer it!"

Both Maria and Sharon scrambled for the phone, the blond finally managing to grab it from the floor.

"_And I bleed when I fall down."_

Giving an incoherent growl, Bucky turned the car hard to the left, and the steering wheel was wrenched from its post.

"Buck!" Steve shouted, voice laced in horror as the car careened completely out of control, about to crash into a skyscraper.

Sharon had finally managed to press the 'talk' button. "Hello?" she said. "Sorry, we're in a bit of a situation—"

Bucky slammed the breaks.

Heads were whipped backwards as the front of the car crunched against the building, airbags bursting out of the dashboard and punching him and Steve in the face.

There was various groans as the four of them extracted themselves from the vehicle and glanced around wildly.

"Bucky—" Steve started.

"Yeah yeah, you told me so," Bucky grumbled, the steering wheel he'd decapitated still held in his metal hand.

A Hydra car came down the street at them, and without thinking Buck threw the steering wheel straight through it's windshield. Then he wrenched off one of the doors of the car they'd crashed, throwing that too for good measure.

"Come on!" Steve said, grabbing Bucky's arm and pulling him the other way, and the four of them began running. "We need an escape plan!"

"Fury?" Sharon spoke into the phone she was still holding to her ear as she ran. "Where's that place you were talking about? Because Bucky's the only one who knows currently and frankly I don't think—"

"I'm not running!" Bucky protested, stopping and turning to face the oncoming Hydra agents. "I'm sick and tired of running and hiding!"

His face was dark and furious, murder dancing behind his eyes like flames.

"Now is _not _the time!" Steve yelled, grabbing Bucky's arm, but the soldier yanked out of his grasp, pulling out the gun he'd borrowed from Maria.

"—that' he's going to be—" Sharon continued into the phone, only to be interrupted, ducking behind a parked car to avoid a hail of bullets. "—driving or—"

A blast suddenly shook the car and tossed her to the ground, the phone flying from her hands and shattering against the ground, eliciting a curse from her.

Bucky was returning fire, dashing out from behind a truck to duck behind another abandoned car as he took down Hydra agents, making his way closer to them.

Steve was trying to follow his friend when his phone started ringing loudly from his inside jacket pocket.

"_Been around the world don't speak the language, but your booty don't need explaining."_

"BUCKY!" Steve shouted, as his hands clawed at his jacket trying to find the object. "You hacked my ringtone, didn't you?! You know I can't stand this song!"

"_All I really need to understand is when you, talk dirty to me."_

But the Hydra agents had swarmed out of their vehicles and we're surrounding Bucky, engaging him in hand-to-hand combat, which didn't seem to be working out too well for them.

"_Talk dirty to me."_

Running over to the fight, Steve finally manged to get the cellphone out of his pocket, holding it to his ear with one hand while he socked a Hydra agent with his left, while kicking another into the windshield of a car.

"What is it?!" he demanded, as holding the phone between as ear and shoulder as he blocked a strike with his right hand and then knocked the guy out with his left.

Whoever was on the other end of the line said something Steve couldn't make out over all the fighting.

But suddenly nothing mattered, because one of the Hydra agents shouted something in Russian, and Bucky's eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground, limp and unconscious.

"BUCKY!" Steve shouted again, this time in panic instead of anger, and without a thought he took the phone in his hand and threw it straight into the agent's face.

And then he was taking down Hydra agents left and right trying to reach his friend, but suddenly he wasn't alone as Sharon was suddenly fighting beside him, most of her skirt torn off and being used instead as a weapon.

Steve reached Bucky and picked him up, just barely stepping out of the way as a taxi came out of nowhere and flattened the remaining Hydra agents.

The window rolled down.

Maria was sitting in the driver's seat. "Get in," she ordered.

So Steve got into the back, draping Bucky across the seat so that his head was inSteve's lap, while Sharon took shotgun, and they took off.

"Do we know where we're going?" Sharon asked. "I didn't get the location from Fury—"

"Back to our apartment," Steve said immediately, looking up to meet Hill's gaze in the rearview mirror. "I need my shield."

"Your apartment is probably compromised," Maria pointed out. "We can send someone to get it later, but for now—"

Maria's phone started ringing.

"_Standing in the hall of fame, and the world's gonna know your name,"_

Sighing, Maria pulled the phone from the front of her dress, glancing at the screen to see that the call was from Fury, before handing it to Sharon so she could focus on driving. "Answer that, will you?"

"_'Cause you burn with the brightest flame."_

"Wait!" Steve said, "Don't answer it!"

"_And the world's gonna know your name."_

Sharon turned her head to look back at him, raising an eyebrow in question. "You know something we don't, Rogers?"

Steve's lips twitched. "I just like this song," he answered.

Sharon answered the phone.

"Hell—" she paused, apparently cut off. "Yeah, we're in the clear at the moment... No, nobody was injured, though Bucky seems to have passed out..."

"It was a shutdown code," Steve supplied, voice stiff with barely restrained anger. "From his soviet handlers."

But though his voice and expression were hard, his fingers were gentle as he absentmindedly ran them over Bucky's forehead, brushing the hair out of his friend's face.

"No, Hydra used a shutdown code on him, apparently..." Sharon relayed. "Where?... Okay, yeah, I got it... We'll meet you there."

She hung up. "He said to meet him at safehouse 'Minivan' wherever that is," she told Maria. "Said you'd know."

"Right," Maria said, as she checked the mirrors to make sure they weren't being followed, before she steered the taxi onto the freeway.

Sighing, Steve leaned his head back against the headrest as the adrenaline coursing through his veins began to wear off, but his head jerked up when Maria's cell started ringing again, his body tensing.

"_Standing in the hall of fame, and the world's gonna know your name."_

Sharon glanced at the screen. "Hey, Tony Stark's calling you, Maria," she said.

"Don't answer it," Maria ordered.

"_'Cause you burn with the brightest flame."_

So Sharon let the phone ring.

"_And the world's gonna know your name, and you'll be on the walls of the hall of fame."_

Steve let his body relax again, resuming his absentminded stroking of Bucky's silky hair.

"_Be a champion..."_

* * *

**This chapter was inspired by the prompt "Cellphone ringing." I didn't know it was going to turn into song ringtones though XD**


	3. Steve's Not-A-Frisbee

**Chapter 3: Steve's Not-A-Frisbee  
**

When Bucky came to consciousness, he was aware of the fact that it was fairly dark, and that he was being carried.

"Wha...?" he said blearily, opening his blue eyes to meet Steve's own.

Steve smiled. "Hey Buck," he said, "How're you feeling?"

"Are you carrying me?" Bucky asked, blinking.

"Um, yeah," Steve said.

Bucky's eyes widened, and Steve continued hurriedly, "It's not like I haven't before—you know, when you would be a stupid idiot and get yourself shot during the war—"

"Get your meatpaws offa me!" Bucky cried, struggling out of Steve's arms and falling to the floor, immediately springing to his feet. "I'm not some maiden that needs to be..."

Bucky trailed off as the world swayed around him, and he gripped the wall for support with his left hand while his right hand went to his forehead.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, taking a step closer to him. "Are you alright?"

"What did I _do?" _Bucky said with a soft groan.

"Hydra used some Soviet shutdown code on you," Steve answered.

Looking up, Bucky realized they appeared to be in the dim hallway of some underground bunker, and that both Sharon and Maria were standing there watching them, there gazes flicking between Steve's face, Bucky's face, and Bucky's left hand.

When he turned his head to see what they were gazing at, Bucky saw that the fingers of his left hand had dug into the concrete wall of the hallway.

"Where are we?" he asked in confusion, as he pulled his hand from the wall, only he failed to open his fist and so he tore out a chunk of the concrete.

"In a safehouse in Philadelphia," Maria answered matter-of-factly. "We're here to see Nick Fury."

"Yeah yeah, I remember that part," Bucky said airily, turning to begin leading the way down the hallway. "Let's not keep the old man waiting then, shall we."

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" Steve asked in concern, falling into step beside him and staring at him scrutinizingly.

"Oh, _I'm _fine," Bucky drawled. "But your nose sure won't be if you keep asking me that stupid question."

"I'll take that as a 'no' then," Steve said, more of a statement than a question.

"Hydra is still out there," Bucky said, turning to stare straight ahead into the dark corridor, voice dropping to wintry growl. "The organization that turned me into _this," _he made a gesture to indicate himself with his metal arm, "That stripped me of my humanity and used me as a weapon that almost threw the world into chaos and almost _killed you." _

Bucky met Steve's gaze for a moment, and Steve nearly shuddered at the cold gleam there.

"And until they are utterly obliterated, no, I will not be 'alright.'"

"Damn," Sharon noted, as Bucky quickened his stride and pulled away from them down the hallway, "I sure would _not _want to be Hydra right now."

"Would you ever want to be Hydra?" Steve snorted.

Sharon rolled her eyes. "You know what I meant."

* * *

Fury was waiting for them in a meeting room, and the bright florescent lights were a large change from the dark hallway, making them all blink as their eyes adjusted.

Skipping the pleasantries, Fury got straight to business.

"Here is your mission, and all the information we've managed to collect," the former Shield Director said, sliding a dossier across the table towards where Bucky was sitting.

Bucky stopped its trajectory with his fingertips, flipping it around.

"'Project: Heracles,'" he read. He glanced up, frowning slightly. "What does that mean?"

"Heracles was the Greek Hero who killed the Hydra serpent," Fury stated, walking over to his own chair and sitting down, elbows on the table and hands folded together. "Nobody could kill the Hydra because it grew back two heads every time one was chopped off, but Heracles managed to defeat it by burning the stops after he cut off each head."

"Perfect name for a Hydra annihilating mission," Steve remarked.

"That _was _the idea, Captain," Fury agreed, getting up to begin walking around the table the four of them were sitting at. "Hydra still has bases all over the globe, and though you took out a few of them, there are still many more. We do not know the extent which they are scattered or are regrouping."

"But knowing Hydra, it won't take long for them to get back into the game for world domination," Maria added.

Bucky opened the file, flipping through it and skimming over various photos and documents. "Looks like we've got a few leaders here," he remarked.

His eyes narrowed at something, and he slid photo out of the pile to get a better look, before shoving it back in with the others and closing the dossier, sliding across the table to Maria and Sharon as he got to his feet.

"Debrief yourselves," he said, beginning to walk out of the room. "Cap and I have to go retrieve his shield from the apartment." Bucky flashed a grin at Steve. "I know how you get antsy when it's not in your hands."

"Wait, why are you both going?" Sharon demanded suspiciously, rising to her feet as well.

Bucky leveled his gaze at her, smiling coolly as he stated, "Because I don't trust Steve to get his shield without getting his ass kicked in the process."

Sharon opened her mouth to say something else, but Bucky cut her off by adding: "And Steve is the only one I trust to stop me if something triggers me and I go into Winter Soldier mode. And since I don't think you three would be able to deal with me if I try to kill you, or would want to deal with me if I randomly started screaming."

"Does that happen often?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow as she directed the question at Steve.

"His fits are..." Steve hesitated slightly, before settling on, "Unpredictable."

They let the two supersoldiers go (not that they could have stopped them anyhow).

"So, what's the deal, Buck?" Steve asked, as they borrowed a pickup truck from the base's garage and began driving back to Washington DC, Steve at the wheel. The base had a stash of spare clothing, and the two of them had changed out of their ripped suits and into more casual clothing; a t-shirt and blue jeans for Steve, and black jeans, a dark shirt, and a gray denim jacket for Bucky.

"The deal is that we're retrieving your shield," Bucky answered casually, sticking his booted feet up on the dashboard. "And well," he turned a smirk to his friend, "If we brush the local Hydra base out of our hair in the process, who's to say we didn't do something that needed to be done?"

Steve's lips twitched. "Bucky," he said.

"Yeah?" Bucky asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

"Get your feet off the dash."

* * *

They'd gotten to DC without any incidents involving cars or Hydra agents ("And this, Bucky, is why you let _me _do the driving."), but as they rolled down the streets towards where their apartment was located, Bucky suddenly sat up in his seat, eyes scanning the surroundings.

"And there is a Hydra base riiiiight," Bucky drawled out as he stared out the window, "There."

"Where?" Steve asked, glancing over to see where his friend was pointing.

"There," Bucky said again, nodding to what appeared to be a unassuming single-story office building they'd just driven by. "Inside that building. Pull over in a couple blocks, and let's go check it out."

"How about after we get my shield," Steve said.

"Oh come on," Bucky sighed, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "Let's just do a quick reconnaissance, see what there is, then we'll go grab your shield and come back," Bucky said.

"Okay, here's the plan," Steve said, as he pulled over to the curb and parked the truck, a few blocks from the Hydra base in one direction and a few blocks from their apartment in the other. "You go do a quick recon of the building, and I dash over to the apartment and grab my shield, and I meet you outside to plan our approach."

"Sounds good," Bucky grinned, stepping out of the truck onto the street, a gloved hand about to close the door.

"Don't slam the door!" Steve yelled as he exited the vehicle as well.

"I'm not slamming the door!" Bucky protested, stopping himself from throwing it shut and proceeding to close it with conscious gentleness.

"You were going to," Steve said, clicking the car keys to lock the truck, then stuffing them in his pocket.

"Was not," Bucky said indignantly.

"Maybe you should try to close doors with your right hand instead of your left," Steve offered, only for Bucky to slug him in the arm hard enough to bruise a normal person, except that Steve wasn't normal so it didn't bother up.

"Aww, shuddup you little punk."

"Jerk," Steve shot back, though is lips quirked. "Now let's get on with the mission. And don't you _dare_ do anything stupid until I get back."

"How can I?" Bucky asked with a lazy smirk. "You're taking all the stupid with you."

Steve's mouth dropped open, and Bucky laughed, giving a salute and a, "See ya, Captain," before turning and beginning to saunter down the street with his hands in his pockets.

* * *

Bucky slunk around the perimeter of the building, sidling next to walls and hugging the shadows.

"No signs of any guards, Cap," he murmured over their com-link. "I'm going in."

"_No having fun till I get there," _came Steve's voice.

"Yeah yeah," Bucky murmured, as he slipped in through a window that had not been adequately locked against crafty supersoldiers. "Are you at the apartment yet?"

"_Yeah, I'm there. Hey, do you happen to remember where I left my shield?"_

Bucky frowned as he crept through a deserted office full of computers running screensavers, silent as a ghost, holding a gun in his hand.

"Don't you always keep it on the wall across from the couch where the mirror used to be?" Bucky asked, as he reached the end of the office space and still hadn't seen anybody. "And this place is empty, but there's evidence of people being her not too long ago. I don't like it, Steve."

"_Oh," _came Steve's voice, and then the sound of gunfire.

"CAP!" Bucky yelled, eyes going wide in alarm as he whirled around. "What's going on?!"

"_I think the reason there are no Hydra agents there," _Steve said, giving a grunt of exertion, and there was the sound of someone crashing through glass, _"Is that there's a whole platoon of them over here." _

"Dammit!" Bucky cursed, slipping into a chair and bringing up the desktop, opening a terminal and beginning to type in a flurry of commands. "Can you hold out for a few minutes?"

"_Yeah," _Steve answered above the noise of bullets. _"These guys are pansies." _

"Pansies with machine guns though, it sounds like," Bucky muttered, eyes flicking over the screen as his fingers continued to skitter over the keys. "Shit!" he cursed as he pulled open a file and got a glance at its contents.

"_What is it?" _

"Looks like Hydra is already growing back some heads," Bucky answered, plugging in a USB drive and beginning to download the files. While the data downloaded he got up and quickly pulled apart several computers, pulling some other objects out of his pockets and rigging everything up.

"Just hold out for a bit longer, okay Steve?" Bucky said. "I'll be right over."

Grabbing the flash drive as it finished downloading and setting his self-made bomb to blow, Bucky ran towards a window and leapt through the glass as the building exploded in flames behind him, and he continued streaking down the pavement towards their apartment complex.

* * *

Their apartment was now open to the air on two sides, riddled with bullets and the holes they left in the walls and furniture, and the rooms were more wrecked than when Bucky had his fits.

"Can't you guys ever take these fights somewhere private?!" Steve demanded, flipping backwards and kicking a Hydra agent in the chin while dodging a spray of bullets, taking out the shooter with a punch to the jaw.

The grounds were just swarming with Hydra agents like ants, and Steve could only presume that they'd stolen his shield, since it wasn't in his apartment where he'd left it.

"I get that you've got a grudge against me," Steve ground out, knocking a couple Hydra agents' heads together and then throwing the unconscious bodies at their comrades. "But that doesn't mean that—!"

A grenade was flying through the air at him, and Steve ran towards the crumbled wall and jumped as part of the kitchen exploded behind him.

He rolled on impact with the next roof, getting to his feet and turning back around as the agents came after him.

"If you have damaged my Bucky Bear or Bucky's Captain Ameribear..." he growled, flipping in a no-handed cartwheel to avoid more gunfire. "Then I _swear—" _

A bullet shot, and the agent that had been firing at him fell dead, and then another, and another.

"_I thought you didn't swear, Cap," _came Bucky's voice over the com-link, and Steve glanced over to see his friend running down the street towards him, gun in hand.

Bucky stooped to grab something from the street.

"_Catch, Cap!" _

And then Bucky threw something at him.

Steve caught the round object, holding it before him just in time to shield himself from more bullets. He threw the object like a frisbee, knocking it between the shooters' heads, and it wasn't till the object was out of his hands that Steve realized, "Bucky, did you just throw me a manhole cover?!"

"_Yeah,"_ Bucky said, as he took down Hydra operatives in the street. _"Have you found your shield yet?" _

The manhole cover had ricocheted from the shooter's heads, but it wasn't Cap's shield, so instead of coming back to him it hit a streetlamp and then dropped.

"No," Steve answered, engaging it hand-to-hand combat with the agents that climbed after him onto the roof. One of them charged at him, and he flipped them up over his head and then whirled around to kick them into another agent and send them both tumbling off the roof. "My guess is that they took it somewhere."

"_Well then," _Bucky said, catching the manhole cover before it hit the ground and spinning around to throw it like a frisbee back to Steve, _"You might want to hold onto this for the timebeing." _

Steve caught it one-handed, twirling with the impact to ram it into Hydra heads, the heavy metal knocking them out immediately.

"It doesn't throw like my shield though," Steve remarked, as he slammed it into someone's face.

"_Then don't throw it." _

Just then Steve turned to see a Hydra lackey with a gun aim for the distracted Bucky who was currently knifing someone, and Steve shouted, "Bucky, look out!" and threw the manhole cover on reflex, taking the agent down just as he pulled the trigger so that the bullet whizzed astray.

The manhole cover skidded down the street.

"_What did I just tell you?" _Bucky said with a grown, dropping the dead agent in his hands and flipping his dagger around to stab into another operative.

"You're welcome," Steve grumbled, turning to catch a punch and then knee the man in the crotch.

There was the sound of shattering glass from below.

"_Well then here, try this," _Bucky offered.

Steve's hand lashed out on instinct and caught the object he'd been thrown, glancing at it to see that it was the steering wheel of a car.

"Really, Bucky?" he asked, smashing the steering wheel down on someone's shoulder to make them drop their knife, then bringing it up to ram beneath their chin. "A steering wheel? Again?"

"_Hey, it's frisbee-shaped." _

"My shield is not a frisbee!" Steve protested, though he threw the steering wheel and successfully knocked an agent off the roof, however the projectile tumbled down as well.

Steve then proceeded to tackle another agent off the roof, and the both of them dropped to the ground, however only the Captain got back up to his feet.

"Here Cap!" Bucky said brightly, throwing him back the steering wheel and simultaneously whirling to kick a Hydra operative in the chin.

"Hey," Steve said, using the steering wheel to break someone's nose before throwing it up to knock a couple agents down from the roof, "Have I ever shown you any games of Ultimate Frisbee?"

"Don't think so," Bucky answered, dropping to a crouch and then swinging his leg around to wipe a guy from his feet.

"Remind me to show you sometime," Steve said, just as more armed agents came around the corner carrying guns. "Where are all these guys even coming from?!"

"Beats me," Bucky grunted, shooting at them with his right hand while he ripped a car door from its hinges with his left, the metal shrieking loudly.

He tossed the car door to Steve, saying, "Here, try this."

"This isn't round, Bucky," Steve remarked as he caught the car door, holding it up to shield himself from the bullets as he ran at their attackers.

"Then don't throw it like a frisbee," Bucky snorted, reloading his gun as Steve crashed into the gunmen and took them out.

There was a moment of stillness then, as they both stood panting lightly, glancing around wearily at the sudden silence.

"That the last of them?" Steve wondered aloud, though he didn't drop his defensive stance or the car door in his hand.

"For the moment," Bucky replied, as he holstered his gun and wiped his bloody dagger on his pants, before tucking that in his belt. "I blew up their DC office before I left, though I didn't check the basement, and it's probably still intact."

"Right," Steve said, finally letting the car door drop to the street, where the metal clattered against the concrete and shards of broken glass. "Then let's go see what we can dig up."

"Not yet," Bucky said, and Steve turned to look at him with a questioning gaze.

Bucky nodded up at their destroyed apartment. "Let's see what we can salvage first."

* * *

It took only a few moments for them to make their way up to the landing via the demolished car and the bent streetlamp, and when they caught the edge of the floor and pulled theirselves up through the demolished wall, Bucky breathed in sharply.

The place was a wreck.

Furniture was smashed everywhere, walls and parts of the ceiling were broken, water was spraying out from the bathroom...

"Yeah," Steve agreed, standing next to his best friend and gazing over the debris. "I think we're going to need to find a new place to live."

Striding into the bedroom, Steve found the bears safely lying on the pillows, and when he brought them out Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

"Bucky?" he asked concernedly.

"In here," came Bucky's voice from the kitchen. "I found your sketchbook, by the way. And your shield."

"Really?!" Steve asked, practically running into the kitchen. "Where was it?!"

"The notebook was in your desk, which had splintered against the wall," Bucky answered, holding the leather-bound sketchbook to his chest with his right hand. "And your shield..."

He pointed to the oven with a metal finger. "Is right there."

Steve stared.

The door to the oven had been blown off, and visible inside of his shield, upside down on the rack with a cooked pizza in it.

Bucky's lips were twitching. "You know, I seem to remember you saying something about cooking a pizza for dinner before we left to go dancing..."

"I'd completely forgotten about that!" Steve blurted, tucking the bears under an arm as he reached into the oven and pulled out his shield. "The pizza stone was dirty, and I didn't have time to wash it!"

Bucky burst out laughing. "Steve, you are ridiculous!" he chortled, shaking his head. "Only you would think to use Captain America's symbol of freedom and favorite weapon as a pizza stone."

Steve glanced at the pizza in his shield. "It doesn't look to burnt," he remarked, before turning his gaze to his friend, simpering. "You hungry, Buck?"


	4. Bucky's Arm is a WMD

**So I woke up, and then worked on this chapter because it's the weekend and I didn't feel like doing homework. And then I went and saw _X-Men: Days of Future Past _(which was totally awesome) and then I came home and worked on this chapter some more. So basically this chapter took me like forever to write and was unusually frustrating - I kept changing my mind about how I wanted things to go and rewriting everything. **

* * *

**Chapter 4: Bucky's Arm is a WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) **

The entrance to Steve and Buck's apartment building was on the opposite side as their quarters.

Not to mention the police had already been there to remove the dead bodies and question Captain America (Bucky had hidden in the closet under the excuse of searching for his missing leather boot), and then had cleared up and left.

As well as the fact that the world was darkening with gloaming, blurring details to fuzzy black and gray shapes that bled into each other, extinguishing color contrast and flattening depth.

So from the front, everything looked perfectly fine. And Sam entered the building and walked up the stairs to their apartment completely unassuming.

The stairwell hadn't been damaged, and their front door was intact.

Sam knocked.

"Hey guys," he called. "Open up. It's the handsome guy from down the street."

Steve's voice came through the door: "Come on in, Sam! The door's not locked."

So Sam turned the knob and opened the door, only to stop dead, mouth dropping.

The apartment looked like it had been the location of a violent bar fight and then had been bombed, the walls covered in blood and burns and bullet holes.

Steve and Bucky were sitting in the middle of the floor, which they'd cleared of debris, and Steve's shield was placed on the ground between them, holding a half-gone pizza.

"Hey Sam," Steve greeted casually. "You hungry? There's still pizza left, and we've got one helluva view," he said, as he gestured to the gaping hole that had been blown through the wall and ceiling, allowing them a full and unobscured view of the sun setting orange and crimson behind the silhouettes of the buildings of Washington DC.

A gentle breeze flowed in, smelling of gun powder and the copper tang of blood, as well your normal city scents such as car exhaust.

"Hey," Bucky said, lips quirking as Sam continued to gape at the apartment in shock, and then at them with their torn and bloodied civilian clothes. "You just gonna stand there and gape like fish? Because the view ain't goin' anywhere, but the pizza sure is," he added, as he took another piece of pizza from the shield and bit into it.

Sam managed to close his mouth, but then he immediately opened it again to demand, "What _happened?!" _

"We had some rude house guests," Steve replied, as he too took another slice of the pizza, which looked only slightly burnt and appeared to have every possible meat and vegetable topping on it.

"Yeah, our day sucked. The pizza's real good though," Bucky grinned through a mouthful of the food.

"Bucky, don't speak with your mouth full," Steve chided, extending a foot to nudge the other man.

Bucky rolled his blue eyes, dark in the fading light, but he swallowed before drawling, "Yes, mother."

Turning his gaze back to Sam, Bucky continued, "Seriously though. You know that list of 'Possible Alternative Job Occupations for Steve Rogers' we've been working on? We need to add 'Pizza Chef.'"

Sam couldn't help but snort as he walked over to them and sat down, reaching for one of the last slices of pizza. "So, we currently have: Ultimate Fighter, Artist, Chorus Girl, Olympic Gymnast, and now Pizza Chef..."

"Don't forget Living Heater," Bucky said, earning him a playful punch from Steve.

"Like you need one," Steve snorted. "You run pretty hot yourself."

Bucky grinned devilishly. "Oh really?" he asked, before leaning over and sticking his metal hand up the back of Steve's shirt and pressing his cold palm against Steve's warm skin.

"_Bucky!" _Steve shrieked (yes, _shrieked,) _as he jerked away on reflex and ended up stumbling backwards over half of the demolished coffee table, performing a backwards roll into a defensive position.

"I call the last piece of pizza!" Bucky hooted, lunging and swooping the last slice from Steve's shield before either of the two men could move. He then leapt to his feet and danced off with it, stuffing half of it into his mouth with one bite and grinning cheekily at them.

"Hey, I only got one piece!" Sam protested indignantly.

Steve just laughed. "That's what you get for arriving late to the party, Sam."

"Yeah, I'm sorry to have missed it," Sam said, glancing around again at the ravaged apartment, broken furniture jutting up like crags and tombstones in the twilight that now draped the world with its heavy cloak.

Through the gaping gap in the building, the lights of the city glowed and glimmered, yellow and red and green and white against the hazy starless sky.

Bucky looked out at the night, then over to Steve. "Amumph fime?" he asked through a mouthful of pizza.

"Now you're just doing that to annoy me," Steve said, leveling his gaze at his friend unamusedly.

The brunette saluted sharply, then marched over to the closet and pulled something out and tossing it at Steve, before heading into the bedroom and closing the door.

Catching the Captain America outfit, Steve chuckled and shook his head.

"You going somewhere?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.

"If you want to come then you better suit up," Steve said, before heading off to get changed and leaving Sam standing in the middle of the gutted apartment. "We don't know what we might encounter."

* * *

All suited up, the three of them stood before the rubble of the office building Bucky had blown to smithereens.

Captain America had had his old suit patched up good as new (or 'good as old') and Bucky was clothed in black leathers that looked more like motorcycle gear than anything else, and Sam had his suit with new improved metal wings courtesy of a certain Tony Stark.

"There's nothing here," Sam stated.

"It's Hydra," Steve said, as he began clambering through the rubble, moving a steel beam out of the way. "Of course there's something here."

Bucky had already disappeared among the wreckage.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, glancing around trying to catch a glimpse of the assassin.

"_I found it,"_ came Bucky's low voice.

Steve turned in a circle as he surveyed the remains of the building. "Where are you?"

No sooner had he said this the dark silhouette of Bucky Barnes appeared standing on a cement wall that jutted like an island out of the sea of wreckage, before he disappeared again.

There was the sound of shrieking metal.

Steve and Sam made their way over to find Bucky standing before the doors of an elevator that had been concealed behind a row of metal filing cabinets.

Bucky pushed punched in a code, and after several moments the elevator gave a ding and the metal doors slid open, the three of them filing inside, the doors closing after them.

With a jolt the elevator began lowering.

"You think there's going to be anybody down there?" Sam inquired, as he shifted so was next to Cap facing the doors.

"Guess we'll see," Buck answered, as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the handrail. "If they felt the blast from earlier, they're probably in the process of clearing out."

"How do you know they haven't cleared out already?" Sam asked, furrowing his brow.

But Bucky didn't answer, just stared at the metal doors as if he could see the elevator shaft slide by behind them, his posture deceptively relaxed.

"Their weren't any footprints in the rubble," Steve said, frowning at his shield as he realized it still had some tomato sauce and melted cheese on it. "And the filing cabinets concealing the elevator had still been in place."

Just then the elevator doors dinged open, and the three of them were greeted by an expanse of darkness.

They slipped forward into the blackness, and after a moment wan florescent lights flickered to life, casting the corridor in a bright but sickly pallor.

It was a tunnel, it seemed, and while Sam and Steve crept through the hall with shield and weapons ready, Bucky stalked like a confident predator, and every time they came to a pair of thick metal sliding doors, Bucky punched in a code and the doors electrically slid open without a hitch.

"Damn, how many of these doors _are _there?" Sam grumbled as they came up to the fourth one. "They must be paranoid about their security or something."

"This door should open to the main room," Bucky said, his left hand hovering over the keys for a moment before the began clicking-and-clacking in the secret code. "Stay behind me."

"Bucky—" Steve started, but Bucky cut him off with a shake of his head.

"The Winter Soldier and I got this," Bucky said, and as the large doors retreated within the walls, Steve and Sam pressed themselves against the walls of the hallway.

Bucky strode forward into the high-ceilinged room with a mechanically blank expression.

The room was full of screens and various computers and machinery, and scientists in green bodysuits with cylindrical helmets, faces masked by netting, and they turned as the Winter Soldier entered.

"That Asset," one of them said.

"_Not to you," _Bucky spoke in Russian, voice impassive, and then before any of them could so much as blink he had whipped out two guns from his thigh holsters and shot half of them down.

"We're under attack!" somebody shouted, as Sam flew in on his metal wings, a gun in each hand, and Steve charged in with his shield already flinging from his hands to ricochet off screens and helmets.

"Initiate the defense system!"

One of the Hydra operatives managed to avoid fire for long enough to scrambled over to where a giant, spider-like robot was hooked up, desperately plugging in the command.

Steve spotted him and took the agent out with his shield, but it was too late.

The metal spider roared to life.

Fully standing on its eight metal legs the robot was the height of a single story, and its eight glowing red flickered, before locking on its targets and firing beams of energy.

"Whoa!" Falcon exclaimed, as he whirled in the air narrowly missing being zapped.

Steve held up his shield to block the beam, but the energy blew him backwards, hard against the wall.

Turning from where he'd just stabbed the last living Hydra agent, Bucky saw the spider bearing down on Steve.

"Steve!" he shouted in alarm, as the robot fired another lazer at the Captain, who got to his feet and blocked it with his shield again before flinging the projectile at the spider, aiming for the head.

The shield was knocked away by a huge metal leg, and the taloned foot of it came down at Cap, who managed to roll away, only to be grabbed by a different leg.

"Nnng!" Steve grunted, as he was picked up in the crushing grip, the sharp pincers digging into his chest before he was flung across the room and into the opposite wall.

Sam tried to catch the Captain, but one of the spider's lazers zapped his suit, and his mechanical wings buckled so that he too tumbled to the floor.

"STEVE!" Bucky shouted in horror as he ran towards his friend.

The spider advanced on the Captain again with its red eyes glowing, and Bucky's eyes went dark.

When the robot shot at Steve again, Bucky dove in front of him, holding his left arm up to block the beam, the metal heating with the energy, the red star on his shoulder shining with it.

Gasping, Steve pushed up, eyes going wide as he saw what Bucky was doing.

"Bucky!" he shouted, horrified, as the lazer finally stopped.

The left side of Buck's leather jacket burnt completely away, and the rest of it was smoking. His gaze was chiseled of diamond—that hard and sharp.

Sprinting at the wall, Bucky ran up the vertical face several steps before pushing off and leaping onto the back of the spider, grabbing onto the ridge on its back. Bracing himself with his feet and right hand, Bucky brought his left arm back, the prosthesis whirring as he brought it down with all its enhanced strength against the dome of the spider's head.

The robot stumbled, trying to shake the man off, trying to raised its legs to knocked him off, but Bucky wouldn't let go.

He was a force of nature—Bucky's fierce protectiveness coupled with all the Winter Soldier's skill and strength and of course, that metal arm.

Bringing that metal arm back, he punched the dome again, again, again, the red star on his arm going nova each time he did.

"_Nothing," _he ground out. _"Gets. Away. With. Hurting. Steve."_

The metal exoskeleton of the spider was resilient, but against the onslaught of Bucky's vibranium metal arm and his vicious fury, the material finally shattered.

"_EVER," _Bucky added, as his arm whirred and he brought it down for one last strike straight into the mechanics of the machine, the wires and circuits.

"BUCKY! NO!" Steve yelled, as the spider staggered wildlyand shorted out, sparking like a lightning storm.

Bucky flipped off with all the grace of an Olympic gymnast and rolled on the ground, and Steve hardly had time to realize what was going on before Bucky barreled into him and knocked him to the ground as the robotic spider crashed into the wall and exploded and a wave of heat and flame washed over them.

Steve looked up to see Bucky's shadowed face above his, long brown hair hanging down to brush against his cheeks, as tongues of bright orange fire and plumes of black smoke unfurled in the background.

Bucky's face betrayed no emotion and not a sound left his lips as he bent his head down and kept Steve pinned to the floor, avoiding the worst of the explosion as he shield his friend with his body, the round outline of the Captain America shield visible on his back where it kept off the brunt of the explosion.

The explosion was over after a few seconds that dragged out for hours, and the room was filled with dark smoke and the scorching, melted wreckage of the robotic spider.

Bucky turned his head to glance over his shoulder to make sure the threat was over before he sat back and let Steve sit up.

"Bucky?" Steve asked in concern, meeting the dark, blank gaze of his best friend.

"Mission: protect Steve," Bucky spoke monotonously. "Accomplished."

Steve frowned, but before he could say anything there was the sound of coughing to their right and Bucky's head snapped around as he jumped to his feet and pulled out a dagger as a figure stumbled out from behind a large piece of machinery.

"That—" Sam started, but he was cut off as Bucky kicked him in the chest and sent him flying.

"Bucky _no!"_ Steve shouted, staggering to his feet and grabbing Bucky's arm as the assassin advanced on Sam. "Sam's not a threat! He's a friend!"

Bucky paused, turning to Steve with that void look that made Steve's heart clench.

"Must keep Steve safe," Bucky stated.

"I _am _safe," Steve murmured as he took Bucky's face in both his hands, rubbing his right thumb over Buck's cheekbone beneath his left eye. "I'm safe. You've neutralized the threat. It's okay."

Bucky didn't even blink as he held Steve's cerulean gaze.

Steve's thumb traced over Bucky's cheek, wiping away the soot and feeling the roughness of a day's worth of stubble.

"Come back, Bucky," Steve besought.

This time Bucky blinked, lifting his right hand to gently grasp Steve's left wrist.

"Sam is Steve's friend?" Bucky asked.

"Yes," Steve nodded, smiling slightly though his eyes were wet, droplets of water clinging to his long eyelashes when he blinked.

Bucky pursed his lips, gaze falling. "I hurt Steve's friend?" he asked.

"It's alright," Sam grunted, as he picked himself out of the rubble and brushed himself off. "I'm okay."

Sam watched as Steve let his hands fall to Bucky's shoulders, murmured something to him, and Sam couldn't help but think that their relationship was something incredibly deep that he couldn't hope to touch; that Bucky even in Winter Soldier mode had the fierce instinct to protect Steve, and that Steve always smiled more genuinely when Bucky was around.

Steve's words weren't working to break through the Winter Soldier programming, so Steve finally just pulled Bucky into a hug, arms wrapping around him and the Captain America shield on his back.

Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve's waist, only to pull back in horror when both his hands came away red with blood.

"Steve, you're hurt," he said, and fear and concern was threaded through every nerve of his body.

"I'll be fine," Steve assured him, despite the fact that blood was continuing to blossom from the puncture wounds in his back and chest, oozing down his in vertical red stripes down his patriotic uniform.

The room shook slightly, and pieces of metal began falling from the ceiling.

"Well, none of us will be fine if we don't get out of here," Sam remarked. "Like, right now."

"The robot destroyed the entrance to the tunnel," Steve said, glancing over to where they'd entered and finding the smoldering wreckage of the metal spider covering the entryway, which was probably collapsed anyway, if the crumbling support of the room was anything to go by.

"This way," Bucky said, grabbing Steve's left arm and pulling him towards the other side of the room to a blank section of wall.

"There's nothing here," Sam stated.

But Bucky, still holding onto Steve with his right hand, reeled back his left and slammed his fist into the wall, denting it inwards and cracking it apart along a vertical line. He then dug his fingers into the warped metal and tore the concealed door right out of the wall, pushing Steve into the tunnel.

"Go," he ordered, and Sam wasted no time following the Captain.

Spinning around and flinging the door straight into the room's power generator, which promptly blew up as Bucky ducked into the tunnel right before the entrance collapsed.

Steve was waiting for him, despite Sam's urging that they needed to _go right now. _

"Bucky?" he asked concernedly.

Bucky just grabbed Steve's left hand and began tugging him along.

"Where does this tunnel lead?" Sam asked, trotting along behind them in order to keep up with the speed-walking supersoldiers.

"Out," was Bucky's answer.

The former Winter Soldier was apparently sick and tired of wasting time with secret codes, for every door they encountered he simply made short work of using his metal arm.

He was still tugging Steve along, and had to hold him up more and more as Steve began stumbling, right arm held close over the wounds in his chest. His star-spangled suit was now far more red than white or blue, and his breathing was becoming more ragged, and blood was visible at the corners of his lips.

"How much farther?" Sam asked in concern.

Bucky frowned worriedly at Steve, but Steve waved his blood-coated hand dismissively.

"I'll be fine," he assured.

When they came to the next set of doors, Bucky made certain to keep them relatively intact as he ripped them out.

Setting the door down on the floor, he looked at Steve with light blue eyes and his head tilted slightly, lips tilted up in a half-smile.

"Do you remember sledding?" he asked. "When we were kids?"

"Yeah, and you would give me a push and try to get me to slide down the hill fast enough I would scream?" Steve said, smiling at the memory.

"Yeah," Bucky said, as he gestured at the door lying against the smooth title, its metal surface indented inwards from Bucky kicking it, making it almost curved into a sled. "I'd like to see if I can still get a scream out of you."

Steve just looked at him for a moment, before stepping onto the door and sitting down with his legs out, gripping either upturned side edge.

Bucky glanced at Sam, raising an eyebrow expectantly, and Steve gave a small smirk and patted the door in front of him.

Sighing, Sam sat down in front of Steve on the door, bracing his feet on the front edge and holding onto Steve's legs for support.

"You guys are crazy, you know that right?" he said, as Bucky put his hands on the back of the makeshift sled and began pushing it down the hallway. "I'm going to recommend you guys for counseling."

"Well, I happen to know someone who works at the VA," Steve said.

Bucky built up speed as he pushed them, running faster and faster till the wind was rushing past their faces like riding a bicycle down the hill, and with a last mighty heave that had his metal arm whirring, Bucky shot them off like a slingshot down the hallway, running after them.

"Aiiiieeeeeeee!" Sam yelled, and Steve chuckled.

The makeshift sled was skidding so fast that it was trailing sparks.

It began to slow down and Bucky caught up, not breaking his speed as he jumped onto the back of the sled and gave it another burst of speed, hunkering down behind Steve.

A door approached up ahead.

"Uh, Bucky?" Sam asked nervously.

"Relax," Bucky murmured, leaning over to dig his left fingers into the wall, sparking against the metal as the sled skidded to a halt before the doors.

Bucky stood and stepped off the sled. "Looks like it's the end of the line, guys," he said, as he actually plugged in the code to open the elevator doors.

Sam got up off the sled, smiling despite himself. "We should go actual sledding sometime," he remarked.

Bucky just snorted as put an arm around Steve and helped his friend to his feet, shushing Steve's protests that he was fine.

"Humor me pal," Bucky told him with a smirk. "It's been to long since I got ta feel like I was actually helping you out."

The three of them entered the elevator, Steve now able to lean on Bucky for support without wounding his stubborn pride, as they waited the few minutes to return to the surface.

The elevator came to a halt by rising slightly and then settling back down, and the doors slid open with a soft ding.

Walking outside, they found themselves exiting what appeared to be a large metal dumpster tucked behind a bush in West Potomac Park. A chilly nighttime breeze nuzzled against their skin.

They could see the Lincoln Memorial jutting up behind the trees, a pale ghost against the black backdrop of night, illuminated by the city lights.

"Are we really...?" Sam asked with raised eyebrows.

"Guess it makes sense how they were able to attack me so quickly here on my jog that one time," Steve said, spotting the path through the trees.

"Come on, we need to get you medical attention," Sam said urgently, as he eyed Steve's bleeding wounds and pale face with worry.

"Can you help Steve?" Bucky asked Sam. "I'll go run and get the car, it's not far."

Sam nodded, and Bucky took Steve's arm from around his shoulder and Sam took his place supporting Steve while Bucky raced off in a streak of black and silver.

When Sam and Steve made it to the sidewalk, the Captain sweaty and pale, looking even more so in the moonlight, they only had to wait a minute before Bucky pulled the car up to the curb, letting the engine run as he got out of the driving seat and gestured for Sam to drive, while he helped Steve into the back.

"I hate going to the hospital," Steve mumbled, as Sam pulled out onto the road and Bucky took off his jacket and began taking off his shirt in order to rip it up into bandages.

"I know," Bucky murmured, meeting Steve's gaze in the dark, the both of them remembering the times Steve had gotten horribly sick and had to be hospitalized, Bucky staying by his bedside.

As Bucky began bandaging Steve's wounds, Steve got a glimpse off Bucky's bare chest, his eyes going wide.

"Bucky..." he said in horror.

The entire left side of Bucky's body where the flesh was grafted into the metal of his arm was burnt, with what looked to be a deep second-degree burn.

"What?" Bucky asked, looking at him in confusion as he pulled the cloth tight, causing Steve's breath to hitch slightly.

"You're burnt," Steve said, and Bucky glanced down at himself with a frown, looking surprised to see that he was indeed injured.

"Oh," he said, before continuing to apply pressure to Steve's puncture wounds. "Must have been the metal heating up when I blocked that lazer blast."

"Doesn't it hurt?" Steve asked.

"Maybe?" Bucky said, shrugging. "I was ignoring it until you pointed it out."

"Wait," said Sam, sparing a glance back at them, before returning his gaze to the road and pulling into the hospital parking lot. "Are you telling me you _both _need medical attention? Because in that case I guess I might as well just turn myself in for a couple broken ribs."

* * *

**I totally did not mean for this chapter to get so whumpy... but then it did... I just love protective!Bucky, he's too cute X3**

**Also, the thing about the red star on Bucky's arm glowing I actually got from the comics... as well as the idea of the spider robot, lol.  
**


	5. This is my Disguise

**This chapter gave me quite a bit of trouble as well. Why does this story insist on being so difficult?**

* * *

**Chapter 5: This is my Disguise**

Bucky had his right arm around Steve's chest, helping his friend stay upright as they stumbled into the hospital.

There was a young lady at the desk in the white dress and cap of a nurse, with long brown hair that flowed over her shoulders to the middle of her back, and light brown eyes rimmed with a thin layer of eyeliner, eyelashes black with mascara. Her expression was intense, bordering on bored as she looked up from a notepad, a pen held in her right hand.

"May I help—?" she started, eyes widening as she saw the three of them stagger in.

"Are you the Night Nurse?" Steve rasped.

"I am," she said, as her eyes quickly scanned their injuries: Steve's gouged chest and the blood soaking his uniform, Buck's burns around his metal arm, the way Sam had an arm wrapped around his ribs. "Come," she ordered, taking off briskly and leading them to one of the vacant hospital rooms.

"Who's the Night Nurse?" Bucky whispered to Steve.

"She helps out guys like us when we need help," Steve answered. "Especially when we just need a quick patch-up and don't have time to deal with normal hospital routines."

"Never heard of her," Bucky muttered.

"You've never _needed _her before," Steve pointed out.

"She used to date Doctor Strange," Sam added, from where he walked just behind them.

"Who's Doctor Strange?" Bucky asked.

"Come on," the Night Nurse said again, opening a door and gesturing for them to enter, and to be quick about it. "Let's get you guys fixed up, the quicker the better."

* * *

"There," she said, as she finished bandaging Sam's broken ribs. "You're good to go."

She'd already stitched Steve's wounds closed and bandaged them, and wrapped Bucky's burns in cool, moist bandages.

"Now," she continued, "I don't suppose I could convince you to stay in the hospital—"

Heads were shaken vehemently.

"It's just a flesh wound!" Steve proclaimed, at the same time Bucky claimed,"Tis but a scratch!"

Steve turned to look at Bucky with an indignant expression."A scratch? Your arm's off!"

"No it isn't," Bucky said confusedly, his brow furrowing.

"Then what's that, then?" Steve said, nodding to Bucky's metal arm, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

Bucky glanced at his prosthesis, then laughed. "I've had worse," he drawled.

"You liar!" Steve accused, grinning.

Bucky punched him in the arm with his metal fist as he growled goodnaturedly, "Come on, ya pansy!"

Steve huffed a chuckle, then winced as it tugged on his newly stitched and bandaged wounds.

Sam just looked at the Night Nurse with raised eyebrows. "Did Captain America and Bucky, war heroes from the previous century, just quote part of a scene of Monty Python?"

"So it would seem," she said dryly, though her lips, coated with dark red lipstick, quirked upwards. "Still," she said, leveling her gaze at all three of them, "I am going to have to _strongly recommend _that you guys rest for a few days and let your wounds heal some before you go get yourselves busted up again."

"Yes ma'am," Steve said, saluting sharply.

She just raised her eyebrows slightly with an unimpressed look. "You better. I don't want you to come back here with those lacerations needing to be restitched. And make sure you eat and drink something after all that blood loss."

As they left the hospital, dawn only just beginning to simmer on the edge of the horizon, Bucky asked Steve, "Where are we going? Our apartment's a complete wreck—"

"Stark Tower," Steve answered, as he opened the car door and lowered himself into the driver's seat. "Tony should have a few spare rooms."

"Shotgun!" Bucky called, jogging over to the other side of the car and hopping into the seat before Sam could do so much as groan.

Sam glared at him, but Bucky just grinned cheekily, and after a moment Sam sighed and got into the backseat.

"Hey Steve," he said, "You think you could drop me off at my house? I don't need to take advantage of Tony's hospitality when my place is still intact."

Steve turned the keys in the ignition, the car rumbling to life beneath them. "Sure thing."

* * *

"_There are two men at the door of Stark Tower, sir. They claim they have shawarma for a certain Tony Stark." _

"Shawarma?" Tony asked from where he was lying on his back on a skateboard under an elevated sports scar, hands black with motor oil from his tinkering. "I don't remember ordering any shawarma. Have I really been awake that long?"

"_Only about 42 hours, sir." _

"Oh, well that's not too bad, then," Tony said, grunting as he slid out from beneath the car, rolling off the skateboard to kneel on the floor. He set down his tools and wiped a hand across his forehead, leaving a dark smear of motor oil on his face. "I think I would remember if I ordered shawarma. You can tell the terrorists to go away."

"_I have identified one of the men as Steve Rogers, sir. Would you still like me to ask him to leave?" _

"Steve?" Tony said, immediately lurching to his feet and striding to the door of his lab, stepping over the various gadgets that were lying strewn about. "Let him in, Jarvis. Whose the other guy he has with him? Sam Wilson?"

"_No, sir. He is Caucasian, determining from the skin exposed on his right hand. According to the bioscan, his left arms is made of metal." _

Tony stepped into his private elevator, hitting the button for the ground floor. "Ah, the famous Bucky Barnes!" he grinned. "Or the infamous Winter Soldier. Can't wait to meet him and examine that bionic arm of his. Hey, Jarv?_"_

"_Yes, sir?" _

"Why did you determine that he was Caucasian from his right hand? Why not his face?"

"_Because his face is concealed by a wolf mask, sir." _

"A wolf mask," Tony repeated, raising his eyebrows. "Why is he wearing a wolf mask?"

"_I do not know, sir." _

Tony sighed. "That was a rhetorical question, Jarvis. Did I really program you to understand sarcasm, but not whether or not a question is rhetorical or not?"

"_Was that a rhetorical question, sir?" _

"No, I'm actually curious."

The elevator doors pinged open, and Tony stepped out, to find that Jarvis had already let Steve and Bucky into the tower.

Steve was standing there with a grin and one of those plastic glasses with a fake nose and fake eyebrows and fake mustache on his face and a bag of shawarma in his arms. There was a guy standing next to him who was also holding a bag of the heavenly-scented foodstuffs, and he was wearing a snarling black wolf mask.

"Tony," Steve greeted.

"Steve," Tony acknowledged, nodding to him. He nodded to the wolf-man. "Bucky. Do I even want to ask?"

"No, not all this shawarma is fer you," came the muffled voice from inside the mask.

Tony blinked his dark brown eyes, then chuckled. "Hey Steve," he grinned, "Your boyfriend still has a funny-bone."

"Yeah, I still have the right one," Bucky the wolf-man quipped.

Steve snorted, and Tony laughed.

"I think I'm going to like you, Mr. Barnes," the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist grinned. "But seriously: what's with the nerd glasses and the wolf mask?"

* * *

"So," Tony said, picking up his shawarma, "You're telling me that you guys saw a party store and decided that a wolf mask and a pair of Groucho glasses were your best bet at disguising yourselves from Hydra?"

Bucky tactfully took that moment to take a huge bite of his shawarma so that he didn't have to answer.

"Would you have expected Captain America and the Winter Soldier to wear ridiculous Halloween masks as a disguise?" Steve asked, setting down his Arab dish and reaching for one of the paper napkins in the middle of the table.

"Well, no," Tony admitted. "Because it's a stupid tactic, and neither Captain America nor the Winter Soldier are that stupid."

"Exactly," Steve said, blue eyes meeting Tony's gaze and holding it steadily. "Surely you, being a genius, know the various values of playing down one's intelligence."

Tony tilted his head minutely in acknowledgement. "Fair enough," he said. "But you guys still looked like utter fools."

The three of them were in one of the many kitchens in Stark Tower, sitting at the dining table, the surface of which was covered in shawarma dishes that the two supersoldiers were practically inhaling.

Supersoldiers had super appetites, apparently. Especially after the long day of fighting Hydra agents and getting beaten up by huge metal spiders, that they had told Tony about.

"So, your flat is pretty much completely destroyed," Tony said.

Steve and Bucky nodded.

"And you need a place to crash while your injuries heal."

They nodded again.

"Right. Jarvis?"

"_Yes, sir?" _

"How many guest rooms do I have available at the moment?"

"_Twelve, sir." _

"Make that ten now. Two them are have just been taken."

"Eleven," Steve corrected. "We only need one."

"But preferably one with two beds," Bucky added, lips quirking as he saw the expression on Tony's face. "Steve steals covers."

"So are you...?" Tony started, only to be cut off by Steve's longsuffering sigh.

"It's not like that," he said, sounding exasperated. "First Natasha started teasing us about that, then Sam caught on when he figured out Bucky wouldn't kill him for it, and now _you_..." he glared at Tony.

"Hey," Tony said, raising his hands placatingly, "I'm just saying that you two act like—"

"I believe that the correct term for our relationship accordin' to modern slang is 'bromance,'" Bucky deadpanned.

Tony burst out laughing. "You two are _hopeless," _he snorted, leaning back against his chair as he shook his head and chuckled.

Two sets of intense blue eyes were turned on him.

"Alright, alright," he said, waving a hand, "I'll let the subject drop."

"Thank you," Steve said tersely.

"_But," _Tony continued, sitting back up straight, "The subject I will not drop is this: there is no way you guys are disguising yourselves from Hydra with cheap party masks all the time. If you don't want them attacking you every moment of every day, you need some solid fake IDs or something."

"We don't need fake identities," Steve said immediately.

"Just think about it," Tony shrugged. His gaze scanned the tabletop, which was covered in empty bags and boxes and crumpled napkins, and his eyebrows raised. "Oh, wow. You guys actually managed to finish all that shawarma. What was that, like a hundred pounds of food or something? And now you're staying with me for an indefinite period of time? You are going to eat me out of house and home. And I'm a billionaire. If anybody could eat a billionaire out of house and home, it would be you two. And maybe Thor too. Let's everybody hope that Thor doesn't need to stay in my tower. He'd probably break everything. Does he even know how to work a toaster?"

"You can stop rambling Tony, we won't be staying long," Steve said, standing up and beginning to gather the trash from the table. "Just a few days. We're both fast healers."

"Well, as long as you don't break anything," Tony said. He kicked his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair, expression nonchalant and uncaring. "Pepper's out of town on business currently, so, you know."

"Getting a bit lonely up here?" Steve smiled knowingly. He pushed Tony's feet off the table, and Tony glared at him.

"Me? Lonely? Please, I'm Tony Stark," Tony scoffed. "I have intelligent robots and lots of money, and a girlfriend who calls me once a day whenever she's away. I just meant that it's okay for you to stay here even though Hydra is after you because you won't be putting Pepper in any danger."

"Of course," Steve said, still smiling that humoring smile, before his expression turned sincere. "But seriously, Tony. Thank you."

Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Don't even mention it, Cap. Have you looked in the mirror, or looked at your partner with that wolf mask off? You and the Wintersmith there look like hell."

"Are ya kiddin' me?" Buck asked, looking up from where he'd had his head resting on his arms on the table, smirking defiantly, though his gaze was dull and groggy. "I look amazin'."

"You'd look better if you put the wolf mask on again," Tony snorted. "You two seriously need some beauty sleep. And maybe a shower. You stink."

"Well ain't you sweet," Bucky mumbled, pushing back his chair and beginning to stand up.

Tony stood as well. "Hey, I call it like I see it," he said. "Or smell it, rather. Come on, I'll show you guys to your room. Hey, do you guys still have those bears I gave you?"

* * *

**The Night Nurse is from the MARVEL comics. I stole a bit of dialogue from one of the New Avengers comics by Brian Bendis (which I am actually really disappointed in, because he does not write Bucky well :/) And Dr. Strange was mentioned in CA:TWS, so I figured it was totally okay to include this. **

**If you didn't recognize it, Bucky and Steve quoted part of the Black Knight Scene from Monty Python's film "The Holy Grail."**

**I'm not completely sure where the wolf mask and groucho glasses came from. Lol. Hope that wasn't _too _OOC... but they were attacked by HYDRA twice in one day, and then went and destroyed a HYDRA base and got injured. I think they were pretty tired, and didn't want to take any chances of being recognized and attacked again. Because HYDRA... is _everywhere o_o_  
**

**Tony referred to Bucky as the 'Wintersmith,' which is a novel by Terry Pratchett. The Wintersmith was like a personification/the emodiment of winter, basically. Do I think Tony reads Terry Pratchett? No, I do not. Do I think Bucky has any real resemblances to the Wintersmith besides the fact that the name is kind of similar to the Winter Soldier? Not at all. Why did I have Tony call Bucky that? I don't know. I was trying to think of a new nickname I hadn't seen him referred to in any fanfics, and I'm not much good with many references. Also, I happen to like Terry Pratchett's writing, especially his Disc World series, and the Tiffany Aching arc that the book 'The Wintersmith' is from. So I guess that was just rather self-indulgent on my part. Maybe Tony saw the cover of the book somewhere, I don't know. Don't think about it too hard. **

**My Tony might need some reworking. I think he started to sound a little much like Spiderman there...? Perhaps I've been reading too many comics XD Tony Stark's character in the comics doesn't seem to be quite as glib as Tony Stark's character in the MCU. I haven't watched the Iron Man movies in a while.**

**_EDIT: THIS STORY HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED. _  
**


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